Back Pain and Stiffness – Why You May Have It And How To Fix It – Part 2

In our previous blog post, we discussed mechanical reasons as to why you may experience back pain and stiffness. In this article, we will discuss 4 biopsychosocial factors that can negatively impact your ability to be pain-free. 

We will be discussing a model that looks at the interconnection between biology, psychology and socio-environmental factors, this is the Biopsychosocial model. We will also be touching on the Body-Mind approach which lends to understanding the relationship between the human mind and body. The field of psychosomatic medicine investigates the embodied manifestations of psychological processes. A mouthful I know.

So what am I actually saying here? We want to highlight that pain and stiffness are not exclusively mechanical issues; they do not have a mechanism of injury, develop over time, or are persistent long after the physiological healing process. We want to acknowledge that there can be more at play than just your tissue.

“The Biopsychosocial model is an integrative approach to health care that looks at the interconnection between biology (body), psychology (mind) and socio-environmental factors in order to understand illness causation and promote wellness. This model was first introduced by George Engel in 1977 where he described it as “a concept for integrating biological, psychological, social and spiritual aspects of human functioning”(Engel & Schmale). It has since been adopted by multiple organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) who have integrated this theory into their definition of health promotion.” (1)

Many practitioners often ignore this because of its complexities and the type of training most practitioners receive is heavily influenced by mechanical resolution and tissue healing. Unfortunately, this ends up negatively impacting you the individual who has unresolved pain and stiffness.

Have you been following all of your exercises and stretches?

Have you been avoiding painful movements or movements that you are no longer allowed to perform?

Are you concerned about re-injuring yourself?

Are you frustrated about how little progress you’re making?

If this sounds like you then biopsychosocial factors might be more heavily contributing to your lack of progress than a mechanical issue. 

**(This is not medical advice, please speak with your doctor if you are concerned about your treatment).**

So, what are biopsychosocial factors anyways? Here is a quick list of some biopsychosocial factors that are negatively impacting your progress. 

• Stress gets stored in the body as muscle tension

• Unconscious repressed emotions

• Fear of movement

• Dysregulated nervous system

Ok, that’s great Crystal but WTF am I supposed to do with a list?

I am so glad you asked, let’s chat about the first two and ways you can work on them!

Stress getting stored in the body as muscle tension 

 \ ˈstres  \

Definition of stress

a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation. (1)

We all know that feeling when we get stressed and angry; our fists tense up, or our shoulders are up in our ears, or our jaw is clenched so tightly we might break a f*&kin tooth if we weren’t careful. You can see how stress can easily be stored in the body as muscular tension. 

However, in today’s world, we are constantly surrounded by things that push us towards the “fight or flight” side of our stress response. You are already under stress, you just don’t know it. Our fight or flight response can be activated through various mechanisms. Any stimulus – either good or bad – can be considered “stressful”. So many of these stressors are so small individually and can easily be ignored or not seen as stressful at first. But overtime if these small stressors aggregate together and we don’t take action, this creates a chronic state of stress under the surface and our “fight or flight” response is chronically being activated.

This is a blind spot for most people. Most individuals are not aware of:

• What accumulating stressors are in their life

• The current nervous system state they are in

• How that state is affecting their body

• What can actually do to manage stress

So what now? 

Step 1: Awareness is the first and most important step. Learning to be aware of our body’s own set of signs and symptoms that our stress levels are close to capacity is especially important. I call this “learning your warning signs”.

Being aware of our body’s warning signs is the first and most important step to take in order to reduce stress. For example, I call these “warning signs” as learning your own specific symptoms that let you know when you’re close to capacity for stress. Observing the breath is the best starting point for building awareness and understanding how you respond to stress.

Step 2: The next step is to take an honest inventory of your life stressors and look at all areas – even places you don’t normally consider stressful. Here are a few to consider the level of stress output:

• Work

• Relationship

• Fitness

• Sleep

• Nutrition

• Traffic

• Self-care

• Mindset

• Mood

• Friendships

• Co-workers

• Family

• Social Media

Evaluate each area honestly and ask yourself “is this adding or taking away the stress from myself?” Many of us will convince ourselves that what we are doing is healthy or the “right” thing to do and it might be weighing on you more than you know.

Step 3: Taking active action steps to reduce accumulated stress, manage acute stressors or prevent stress from being stored in the body. We cannot change what we are unaware of and often once we become aware of what is contributing to our problems the solutions are quick to follow.

And within MVMNT’s membership we are creating a holistic self-assessment program because it will help us build awareness about what might be contributing to a stress response or an accumulation of stress. This self-assessment will be available soon! 

Unconscious repressed emotions

Repressed emotions refer to those that you unconsciously avoid. What this means is that you don’t even know that these emotions are being experienced in your body. However, repressed emotions will find a way to be expressed. They might be showing up as back pain or your back pain may serve as a distraction to avoid your unconscious repressed emotions. Our minds are so sneaky in how they will prioritize what is appropriate for us to be consciously aware of. 

Similar to building awareness with your stress signals, learning to better understand yourself and your internal emotional landscape, you can start to shift those unconscious behaviours. Many of us are programmed or conditioned by our caregivers to repress our emotional experiences because they are considered socially inappropriate. Unfortunately, this means that from a young age we learn to do this without fully understanding the consequences or implications or harm this may have on our bodies. 

Our caregivers were most likely doing their best given their understanding so this isn’t an opportunity to sh!t all over them but more of an opportunity to recognize that for some, self-development and re-parenting may serve you well. 

Great, what now?

Step 1: Awareness is the first and most important step. Learning to be aware of our body’s own emotional experience is how we start. 

Being a curious observer and naming your emotional experience with neutrality is a starting point for building emotional awareness. If this is your first time exploring your emotional landscape, know that certain emotions can feel uncomfortable and that is okay. 

Try to approach your emotions as neither good nor bad, just simply feelings that want to be felt.

Step 2: Develop an emotional check-in practice, this a felt experience and not a cognitive process so you will have to get out of your head and into your body to practice this one. Here is how I teach my clients to begin to explore their emotions.

Ask:  How do I feel? 

Answer: I feel ___________ (select an emotion i.e. sad, joy, frustrated, excited, guilty, at ease, etc.)

Ask: Where do I feel it? What does it feel like?

Answer: I feel _____________ (identify physical sensations associated with the feeling identified above ie a black pit in my stomach, heaviness on my chest, light and warm in my heart, etc)

Ask: How intense is this feeling?

Answer: rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the least and 10 the most intense you’ve experienced this feeling)

Step 3: Learning to express your emotions in a safe and constructive manner, one that is safe for you and those closest to you. Having a safe environment and connection with others who you feel safe to express your emotions with in a constructive manner that allows you to process will help you from defaulting to emotional repression. (We will be doing a future blog post where we will discuss this in more detail.)

So now that you have some homework to do, we will leave the other two biopsychosocial factors to part 3 of the blog (coming soon).

If you want some help working through these things, MVMNT can be a resource for you. Within MVMNT’s membership we have curated sections to help with reducing stress, learning to be the curious observer and practicing being present through a mindful movement practice. A great starting point would be our guided meditation and the sleep series in our membership area.

We are also creating a holistic self-assessment program. This will help us build awareness about important aspects of your life and we will be providing resources throughout the year on how to better understand your mind, body and internal systems. This self-assessment will be available soon! 

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